At The 2017 Virtual Reality Global Conference in Beijing, iQIYI released a white paper on China’s burgeoning virtual reality (VR) industry, and announced projects to help foster the growth of Chinese VR productions. With iQIYI’s experience as a video service, it seems like the perfect fit for the rapidly growing VR market.
The summit was attended by numerous industry figures, of course by iQIYI senior vice-president Duan Youqiao, intelligent hardware vice-president Xiong Wen, Google Spotlight Studio head Rachid El Guerrab, BBC executive producer Charlotte Jones, and many more.
iQIYI have already moved into the VR space in the past with plans to make the world’s largest Chinese-language VR platform, and with the 10+ IP Video Production Program iQIYI have released 10 pieces of VR entertainment, including dramas and videogames, in the last year.
Videogame developers are well catered for too, with the 100+ IP Game Cooperation Plan providing 100 IPs from the platform to game developers to use for free, potentially saving devs a lot of time when it comes to designing characters and artwork.
One VR game from iQIYI, Ling Yu, has already become the most downloaded paid game on the Xiaomi VR platform. The future for iQIYI will focus on online videogames, dramas, films and live concerts, with ambitions to expand into technologies that will help blur the lines between mediums such as films and games.
Wen stated; “Major technology difficulties in VR device development are expected to be overcome in near future and there will be more and more all-in-one VR devices with a potential million-level sales performance,” clearly showing great optimism for the future of VR.
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